Ashbury Demo: Bear Mountain 2012

What with endemic entities entering snowboarding since the early 2000s, snowboarding has grown to astronomical proportions, and in some ways, it’s good for snowboarding. However, since its inception, snowboarding has always backed the little guy–those homegrown, rider-driven brands that may not make fistfuls of cash, but they fuel the soul of snowboarding by giving back to the riders and providing them with the opportunity to do what they want when they’re strapped in, and that’s exactly what Ashbury does so well, and it’s exactly why Ashbury does so well.

Durrell Williams’ best trick is not pictured here in this photo. It was a double front on a 15-foot booter to the looker’s left of the course, and it was awesome.

On Easter Sunday, while many riders were sitting down for an early-afternoon dinner with their families, the Ashbury team (and other riders who aren’t sponsored by Ashbury) was sessioning a setup built by the Bear Mountain park staff, and SNOWBOARDER stayed for the show. Laurent-Nicolas Paquin, Brandon Hobush, Louif Paradis, Brandon Hammid, Joe Sexton, Durrell Williams, Danimals, Jake OE, Jonah Owen, Blake Geis, Ben Bilodeau, and many more put on quite a show for the crowd amassed at the bottom on down rails, double square bar transfers, banks, gaps, jumps, and even a pseudo pond skim left over from the day before’s event The Neff Beach Bash. It was hectic, and demos should be. That’s why they’re so fun to watch. But what I liked best was the overall atmosphere. Riders who sported other companies’ shades and goggles were lapping with the Ashbury dudes because they’re all homeys, and that’s really the true foundation of snowboarding: Riding with your friends. It’s why we all do this.

Big thanks to Lance and Mike Hakker for putting on a good show, and to Bear Mountain for hosting an event that was incredibly entertaining.

Brandon Hobush is officially on StepChild Snowboards. Unofficially, our Senior Editor T. Bird is not only a step child, but a red-headed step child, therefore leading us to believe he was neglected as a kid. Hobush’s skills make it impossible to neglect the fact that the kid is sick.

Someone do us a favor and send this to harshzeachtoscorpion.blogspot.com. Jake O-Zeach locks into a steezy Zoich.

One of Ashbury’s fine founders, Lance Hakker.

What’s French Canadian and good at getting crowds excited? Celine Dion. Oh, were you thinking that this was a caption for Laurent-Nicolas Paquin?

Louif Paradis showed up to the demo with two black eyes, which is probably why he “punched” in and went to work on this down rail. Seriously though, it’s a good thing that it was a demo for a sunglass company.

The Marketing man at Bear, Rio Tanbara, and Mike Hakker.

Sam Taxwood stacks footage, which is probably why they call him “STax.” Or maybe they call him “STax” because he likes double decker foods, like Oreos, Turkey clubs, or Pringles.

Joe Sexton wouldn’t rather be fishing.

Spencer Schubert showed his frontside to all the spectators…and he landed this front board transfer, too!